With FIFA 20 Ultimate Team nearing the Team of the Season stage of the game, marking the beginning of the end of the current FUT cycle, it’s time to start looking at some changes we would love to see implemented into next years’ iteration of the mode, in FIFA 21 Ultimate Team.
In our first wishlist for the next year of FUT, we discuss all the changes we’d like to see made to the Icon related content, covering:
- Market corrections for top tier icons
- Icon SBCs - Could they return?
- Icon Swaps - Improvements and changes
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Icon Content in FUT 20 - Key Issues
This year in FUT has in the opinion of many, featured a step down in content that allows users to grind towards top tier icons, resulting in highly inflated prices for top tier cards, and all in all, some of the most unobtainable cards the mode has ever seen.
With EA stating that in FIFA 20 they wanted to “improve the accessibility and availability of Icons throughout FUT 20,” many players have been disappointed to discover that top tier icons are vastly inaccessible, unless you’re a Top 100 trader, Top 100 Weekend League player that consistently gets lucky in rewards, or spend thousands of pounds/dollars in FIFA Points.
Here are the key issues that have occurred in this years’ edition of FUT.
Lack of Icon SBCs
With Icon SBCs completely removed from this years’ FUT, the option to not only grind towards completing an icon of your choice, but also obtaining top tier icons for a discount on their market value, was completely removed.
This meant, that outside of Icon Swaps, the only way for players to obtain icons, were to buy them off the market. Being the most desired cards in the game, with very low supply, prices skyrocketed over the course of FUT 20, with top tier cards either being extinct at 15,000,000 coins, or ridiculously inflated in comparison to last year.
Icon Swaps - Great Ideas, Poor Executions
Now, Icon Swaps were introduced to allow for icons to be obtained through grinding gameplay objectives, which in theory was one of the best new ideas coming into FIFA 20.
However, most desirable icons didn’t feature whatsoever in this ongoing promotion, with “meta” icons only having a base or middle version featured. Poor overall selections of icons that didn’t match the power curve of the game, i.e. 91 Zidane being the best reward for Icon Set 3 in March-May, meant that the Icon Swap ultimately lacked this year.
Furthermore, season lengths spanning up to 3 months to obtain the top half of rewards from every set meant that players weren’t fully engaged with top tier rewards, with many favouring combinations of players that required fewer tokens, or some taking Icon packs instead of top tier rewards.
FIFA 21 Icon Content - Our Wishlist
In FIFA 21, we need a big revamp to the Icon content that is released, to not only keep audiences engaged, but also to dramatically correct the prices of icons on the FUT market. Of course, icons should be expensive, but when top cards are simply unobtainable at 15,000,000 coins through being extinct or being 4-5x the price of previous FUT versions, a solution has to be found.
Here are our 2 key aspects that we want to see added/changed in FUT 21:
- Add Icon SBCs back into FUT
- Overhaul Icon Swaps - More Icon Swap Sets - Shorter Icon Swap time spans - Greater selections of icons.
Bringing Back Icon SBCs
Icon SBCs have to return in FUT 21. Not only did they regulate the market dramatically, reducing overinflation on top tier cards by providing an SBC alternative, but they kept audiences engaged throughout the entire year.
After re-adding Icon SBCs, EA should make a point that only the top-tier, Icon Moments versions are released into Icon SBCs. This would eradicate any confusion that has remained in the past surrounding changes in previous years, i.e. in FUT 19 where Prime Icons replaced Moments Icons due to “community feedback.”
Icon Moments can easily be released throughout the year to match the power curve of FUT, with lower-end Icon Moments such as Nakata, Deco and Litmanen being released early on in the year, with top tier icons such as Gullit, R9 and Eusebio featuring towards the end of the year during Team of the Season.
This would not only give players the ability to upgrade their teams with icons that trend towards the power curve of the game, but would add back the aspect of grinding SBCs during promotions, that was a big success back in FUT 19.
Icon Swaps - An Overhaul Needed
While Icon Swaps were an exciting new addition, as we’ve explained, a number of issues arose that ultimately meant that they were a step back from FIFA 19s Icon SBCs.
Here are the aspects we’d change to Icon Swaps in FUT21:
- Add more Icon Swap Sets - This year proved that there was a major need for more than 3 sets of icon swaps. With many icons either missing out or having lower, less desirable versions released, more sets were needed to allow for more progressive releases throughout the year.
- Reduce time taken per Icon Swap Set - By releasing more, shorter icon swap sets throughout the year, with all tokens available from the start, players would be far more invested in getting all the swaps tokens done as soon as possible, to obtain the best reward, rather than having to wait 4-5 weeks for the next set of tokens to become available.
- Change Online Icon Swap Objectives - Currently, all we see for Icon Swaps are first owner Division Rivals objectives. Why not add objectives into FUT Friendlies, to utilise the new, exciting modes such as Mystery Ball and Headers & Volleys?
With the addition of Icon SBCs back into FUT, coupled with a strong Icon Swaps system, FUT 21 would be a far greater success on the Icon front, keeping players engaged, the market more stable, ultimately leading to a far more well rounded gaming experience that isn’t as heavily skewed towards the pay-to-win model.
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